


Carmine

by syndomatic (orphan_account)



Category: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Genre: Gen, Musings About Mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 16:06:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3942994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/syndomatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-five years are a long time; twenty-five years are not enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carmine

His mother’s fingernails were painted red. 

He learns this, as with most things about her, strictly from extraneous sources: canvas paintings, faded photographs, the immaculate pictures hung in his father’s dark bedroom, framed and behind glass.

He knows her only from the objects she left behind. Lavish dresses, regal high heels, priceless jewelry, his father’s gifts to her. He pictures her wearing them, sometimes — when she’s slipping out the door and stepping into the night, the hem of her dress an indecent height and her mouth tugged up, curving into a coy smile she never saved for her own husband. 

He imagines that same smile shattered, her blue eyes widening, the door to the nursery open and the knife held high in her hand. 

Then, he remembers: he, too, was another inheritance she left behind. A person to remember her by.

 

—

 

His mother wore red on her lips, as well, in the pictures — the color was far less subtle there, deliberate and alluring, wholly indecent, the sort of color one wears to grasp attention. 

He thinks of this as he’s leading the woman out of his car, her hand grabbing onto his for support. Her lips are a familiar shade of red, illuminated by the moon’s pale glow, and he is reminded of old portraits, the ones he grew up haunted by. Her smile broadens after he kisses her — he pictures his father, calling for him, a bottle in hand — and he feels a stab of something vile cutting into him, like betrayal. 

You’re one of them, he thinks. He lets go of her hand, momentarily, to break open the lock of the front gate. You’re just like her after all, he thinks, as her footsteps trail beside his in the dark halls.

I won’t let you, he thinks, and kisses her again.

 

—

 

Twenty-five years are a long time; twenty-five years are not enough. Not for her ghost, not for his father — whose body gave up on him months ago, having rotted itself inside and out — and especially not for himself, the living legacy of her sins, the bastard child with the cursed eyes. 

It’s a fate he’s grown to resign to, having failed to fight it.

 

—

 

He used to think that letting him live unscathed — on the surface, at least — was the only thing she ever did that was worth thanking for. But he knows better, now. Sparing him was an error, a fluke; her second greatest mistake. 

Her first, and the one he isn’t going to repeat, was the fact that she married. 

 

—

 

He gives them a blank look and an unconvincing smile, and shakes the groom’s hand in wordless congratulation. When the man asks him — in a well-meaning whisper — if he’s feeling well, he declines a response, knowing he doesn’t belong here, in a wedding held in the midst of spring, the season as pleasant as the union.

He smiles, places a chaste kiss on the bride’s hand, and walks away from the altar, leaving the happy couple to exchange their vows, and doesn't look behind him because he knows it won't be worth the self-infliction. He doesn't deserve that.

**Author's Note:**

> i just can't get enough of this guy can i?
> 
> just so you know, i originally intended this to be a reuenthal/reuenthal’s nameless dead mom fic — which, let’s face it, is probably canon already, considering his track record with relationships
> 
> comments are appreciated.


End file.
